2. On 1 March the Russian minister at The Hague, Prince Gallitzin, presented Catherine
II's offer to mediate between the Netherlands and Great Britain. The States General
accepted the proposal on 14 March, but Britain refused even to consider a mediated
settlement. The British feared that any negotiations would compromise its position
vis-à-vis the extension of neutral rights and that Russian efforts to end the Anglo-Dutch
conflict would divert Catherine's attention from her mediation of the Anglo-French
war. Russia, however, did not take Britain's refusal as final and undertook a new
initiative at the end of Aug., for which see JA's letters to the president of Congress of 6 Aug., calendared below, and 13 Dec. (Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev., 5:43–44). The Gazette de Leyde of 2 March carried a brief notice of Gallitzin's demarché and on 6 March printed
the French text. For an English translation, see the Annual Register for 1781, p. 310–311; but see also JA's letter of 18 March to the president of Congress, calendared below.